One week after thousands participated in a campaign against Facebook's lax policy towards gender-based hate speech, the social media giant is relenting. Facebook will update its rules and guidelines in order to better address (and remove) hateful posts based on sex.
While Facebook has often refused to remove content from its website due to reasons attributed to free speech, the social network has reevaluated its stance in light of a large outcry from women's rights groups and their supporters.
The campaign was launched by Laura Bates' Everyday Sexism Project, Jaclyn Friedman's Women, Action & the Media group, and writer Soraya Chemaly. They were joined by thousands of others in their cause, including companies such as Dove and American Express, both of which pulled their Facebook advertising until the issue was resolved.
In an online post on Wednesday, Facebook admitted that while it's goal is to make the world more open and free, it has not been as successful as it would like in regulating gender-based hate speech, and that it's old guidelines are not sufficient for dealing with the issue.
"In recent days, it has become clear that our systems to identify and remove hate speech have failed to work as effectively as we would like, particularly around issues of gender-based hate," read the Facebook post.
"In some cases, content is not being removed as quickly as we want. In other cases, content that should be removed has not been or has been evaluated using outdated criteria."
Facebook then outlined the next steps it will take to address the issue, which you can read here.
As the founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, Laura Bates told the Telegraph that it made no sense why Facebook would remove offensive speech targeting Islam, homosexuals, and other groups while leaving sexist posts untouched.
"These incredibly graphic and upsetting images were popping up everywhere," Bates said. "They were becoming prolific. We had parents get in touch telling us their children had seen images of little girls with black eyes in their News Feeds. They were appearing in Facebook Groups - which had nothing to do with women or violence - such as an Atheist Group.
"What was happening was a normalisation of these types of images across Facebook. And while Facebook executives kept telling us that the site had to allow people freedom of speech - what they didn't account for was how these images were stifling other women's freedom of expression - as they left the site distressed and speechless."
Of course, Facebook's new rules are unlikely to stop all forms of hate speech, but the fact that it is willing to reconsider its position is certainly good news. While hate speech can't simply be abolished, knowing that it will not be tolerated is a big step in the right direction.
